About Me

I'm a writer (under the by-line Karen Gadiel) and fibers designer, mostly tatting, also knitting. Full disclosure - I own a yarn/thread/spinning shop in Burdett, NY, Graceful Arts Fiber Studio. Living the dream...

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Getting ready for the Tatting Seminars in the Finger Lakes – just around the corner, April 13-15 - means that by this point in the process, life is all tatting, all the time – even when I’m preparing for Passover or cleaning the house or doing my everyday article-writing for the newspapers. Three of the stories due this week or next are school-related, so there’s a bit of a push on getting ready for those. But I did finish this knitted “Queen of Hearts” Shawl for one of the silent auctions at the seminars. We decided our silent auctions will benefit the stroke and cardiovascular rehab unit at Strong Hospital in Rochester (NY) so knitting this shawl was a labor of love. I decided I want to do another one, to keep. Possibly as a knit-along this summer. The tweedy yarn I used was essentially self-blocking, so after I washed it, I left it in the sunshine and rain for a few days and now it’s totally wonderful.

But just so the joy was not unmixed, just when I was feeling everything was pretty much on its way to completion, came an email from someone who’d asked to teach at the conference announcing she’d decided, for unspecified reasons, to become an ex-teacher. So, 10 days beforehand, in the time I’d left for inessentials like cleaning, writing six articles for various papers, shopping and cooking for a 10-person seder and for Easter AND for my part of the cooking for this conference, packing for another conference, creating a class for kids, dyeing yarns and threads for the shop and – okay, you get the idea. Instead of taking a deep breath and getting into that good stuff, I had to come up with a few more patterns and another class. After a sleepless night, I came up with a Celtic heart. This is the prototype, still needs a little tweaking, but I’m rather pleased with it.

The grey image at the top is a photocopy of the design, the yellow is the real one, done in size 5 cotton. This cotton will be dyed and become part of the needle-tatting package in its new incarnation.